Ohhhhhhhhh...we're half way theyyyyyreeee.....

There's nothing like a Sweet Cuppin' Cake™ in the morning...

You're welcome Annette.



That's right kids, I was told that i would be doing the LID diet for about 2 weeks, and we are at the theoretical half way point. Ive spent seven days on this thing and i know all of you are just chomping at the bit to know how it has been so far. right? RIGHT?

In an unsalted nutshell, its been ok. Mostly.

Before i talk about my diet impressions though i feel like i should impart some info to the folks who need/want it. Im sure that some of you are probably tired of hearing about what i can and cant eat so if you want to skip this next part, then keep on scrolling down.

Stop when you see the dog.


After reading some of my past posts, I realized that i have never really described the exact details about this diet. So, for those of you who have managed to find this post and have been newly diagnosed with Thyca (that's what the cool kids call it) or have to go on a LID diet for any other reason let me cut and paste for you;


From the Thyca cook book, page 9:



• This is a Low-Iodine Diet, NOT a No-Iodine Diet or an Iodine-Free Diet. The goal is under 50 mcg iodine per day.
• The diet is for a short time period, usually for the 2 weeks (14 days) before a radioactive iodine scan or treatment.
• Avoid foods high in iodine (over 20 mcg per serving). Eat any foods low in iodine (up to 5 mcg per serving). Limit
the quantity of foods moderate in iodine (5 to 20 mcg per serving).
• Read the ingredient lists on labels of packaged foods. Check with your physician about medications you’re taking.



At this point you're probably saying, "ok that's cool, i just need to avoid iodized salt right?" In response, i would cut and paste this:


Not Allowed—
Avoid These Foods and Ingredients

• Iodized salt, sea salt, and any foods containing
iodized salt and sea salt.
• Seafood and sea products (fish, shellfish, seaweed,
seaweed tablets, carrageenan, agar-agar,
alginate, nori and other sea-based foods or
ingredients).
• Dairy products of any kind (milk, cheese, yogurt,
butter, ice cream).
• Egg yolks or whole eggs or foods containing whole
eggs.
• Bakery products containing iodine/iodate dough
conditioners or high-iodine ingredients. Lowiodine
homemade and commercial baked goods
are fine.
• Red Dye #3. (E127 in the United Kingdom)
• Most Chocolate (due to milk content). Cocoa powder
and some dark chocolates are allowed.
• Some molasses (if sulfured, such as blackstrap
molasses). Unsulfured molasses, which is more
common, is okay. Sulfur is a term used on labels
and does not relate to iodine.
• Soybeans and soybean products such as tofu, TVP,
soy milk, soy sauce. The NIH diet says to avoid
some other beans: red kidney beans, lima beans,
navy beans, pinto beans, and cowpeas.
• On some diets, rhubarb and potato skins (inside of the
potato is fine).
• Iodine-containing vitamins and food supplements.
• If you're taking a medication containing iodine, check
with your physician.


I remember looking at that list and wondering what the hell i was going to eat for the next couple of weeks. Thyca.org was nice enough to provide that info as well.


Allowed Foods and Ingredients

• Fruits except rhubarb and maraschino cherries
(with Red Dye #3 or E127 in the United Kingdom).
• Vegetables: preferably raw or frozen without salt,
except soybeans and (according to NIH diet) a few
other beans.
• Unsalted nuts and unsalted nut butters.
• Whites of eggs.
• Fresh meats up to 6 ounces a day.
• Grain and cereal products up to 4 servings per day,
provided they have no high-iodine ingredients.
• Pasta, provided it has no high-iodine ingredients.
• Sugar, jelly, jam, honey, maple syrup.
• Black pepper, fresh or dried herbs and spices.
• Oils. All vegetable oils, including soy oil.
• Sodas (except with Red Dye #3 or E127 in the
UK), cola, diet cola, non-instant coffee, non-instant
tea, beer, wine, other alcoholic beverages,
lemonade, fruit juices.
• Read the ingredient list on all packaged foods.


So there you have it,all nicely cutted and pasted for you.(NOTE: yes i know i spelled it "cutted". It was on purpose. Leave me alone you grammar nazi.) That last line is really the best advice of all. Be very mindful of the labels, if you are in doubt, put it down and find something else. If you are like me, you are not going to want to do this diet for longer than you have to, so follow the guidelines closely.

Blog Dog says "YOU should stop scrolling here!"

At this point, i was planning to show you a bunch of pictures of the foods Ive been eating, but since I'm a jackass, i somehow managed to accidentally delete all the pictures on my phone last night. Which sucks because i had all these really cool pictures of brands and boxes and whatnot, but ill have to retake them, so look forward to that.

This picture space is intentionally left blank.

The diet itself has been fine for the most part. I haven't really had the urge to cheat on it, even though i cant drive past Burger King after work without wanting to punch his stupid plastic face in. I hate the way he tries to woo me into his dismally decorated restaurant with a flame broiled siren song that only my nose can hear. I dont even care for BK that much, but when that scent hits the Jeep, i think twice. Other than that though, I feel good. I'm eating foods that are healthy for me and surprisingly, I have found things that i like! Things that i may eat when im not on the diet. I'm very happy to say that i don't have to eat just rabbit pellets and cardboard. As it turns out there are some pretty good recipes in that Thyca.org cook book. The Pot Roast has been a revelation!

I have found some stuff that isn't on the list i supplied above, but if you look at the ingredients of various recipes and get a little creative with your foods, you can find some gems. i suggest you look into it if you are a picky eater like i am. Here's a few i found;

Coconut milk. Just try to go easy on it, unless you want to spend a lot of time in the bathroom.

Homemade Potato chips. if you cut and fry/bake your own chips and use some LID safe seasonings it makes for a tasty little treat.


PRO TIP: If you have just had a thyroidectomy or any other type of surgery on your throat, chances are your vocal chords are weak and screaming will not only be damaging but also quite useless since no one can hear you anyway. To avoid injury and embarrassment, try not to start a grease fire in your kitchen like i almost did. Keep an extinguisher, or big box of baking soda near by just in case.


Fried Chicken. Haven't tried it yet, but i think that i could use a LID safe chicken breast, matzo meal (crumbs) and egg whites and some olive oil(?) and pan fry the chicken. Just remember that you need to limit yourself to 6 ounces or less. I know that's not much, but at least its fried chicken.

Again, i will do a supplementary post with pics of the foods and brand name stuff that i have found so people can look for it in a store near them.

The crappy part about this whole diet thing is being "hypo." The longer i go without my thyroid hormone, the worse i will feel. "Hypo" is short for hypothyroidistic (i think) and its what we thyca folks use to describe the fatigued, craptastic feeling you get when you are on this diet. It wasnt too bad a couple of days ago, but its starting to get worse now. I am really starting to notice some symptoms that i haven't had in the past. I am much more forgetful than i usually am. There are many times where i have to really stop and think about what i am doing, lest i forget why i'm there. I have had to ask people several times to repeat themselves and honestly, its annoying. Ive got other symptoms too, fatigue being the most pronounced one. I feel sleepy all the time. Its like i wake up in the morning, but i don't. I usually wake up to take my meds and then i pretty much just sit there for an hour or more trying to decide if i'm gonna go back to sleep, or if im up and should try to do something. I find that if i make myself get up, and move around a little bit, that it makes the rest of the day not so bad. I have managed to avoid the depression that some people seem to get, though i noticed that i have much less patience for things than i should. I snap at people over stupid things. I think thats part of the mood swing symptom. If you are one of those people, i'm sorry.

Hopefully, everything will go well, and i can have my radiation as scheduled on September 1st, and by the 7th get back on my Synthroid. Maybe by my birthday on in late October ill be feeling better. Thats the hope anyway.

Wow, this turned out to be a lot longer than i expected so I think I'm gonna wrap this one up. I hope i helped some of you out there, and for those of you that made it, thanks for reading.

Also, ill try to stop starting my posts with song lyrics.



Have a nice day.

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate!

"You brought the no-sodium, all-organic, gluten-free trail mix, right?"

Just in case you were wondering, the picture does indeed go with the title of the blog. It says "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Its the original Italian text from La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy)by Dante Aligheri, (according to the Internet anyway) and Ive decided that my man Dante here is gonna help me class up the joint by contributing some verses. Maybe his fine writing will make up for my terrible grammar. Anyway, that pic kind of sums up the feelings i have about this diet i have to be on for the next couple of weeks. As in, abandon all hope of a cheeseburger, or nachos, or chicken Parmesan or anything else i like to eat. Yes my friends, i have started the LID.

Vero è che 'n su la proda mi trovai
de la valle d'abisso dolorosa
che 'ntrono accoglie d'infiniti guai.
Oscura e profonda era e nebulosa
tanto che, per ficcar lo viso a fondo,
io non vi discernea alcuna cosa.

True is it, that upon the verge I found me
Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.
Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous,
So that by fixing on its depths my sight
Nothing whatever I discerned therein.
Canto IV, lines 7-12



As of the time i type this, it is the second day of the LID diet, or the Low Iodine Diet. (which is redundant i know, but just calling it the LID sounds stupid to me.) I think i need to apologize to my wife because, for as much prep work as she did i feel like i am totally unprepared to go into this diet. We have "legal" food at home, but its all more like a list of ingredients; Dry black beans and dry rice and raw chicken and such. I don't really have any meals that i can just heat and eat, or spoon in to some Tupperware and go to work with. (When you are hypothamic, you want everything to be as convenient as possible. Thyca folks will know what i mean by this since being hypo is a miserable experience.) So, that's my plan for this weekend. I dug a little deeper into the cookbook and found that i can have small amounts of some oils so i plan on making my own potato chips and other lightly fried goodies. I would say that I'm excited but that's a relative term. I'm as excited as my body is willing to let me get.

A friend of mine called me out for being a cliche earlier tonight. Since my wife is away on business, i was complaining that i felt like i brought a ton of food and nothing to eat. He laughed and said i was a typical guy who would starve if his wife wasn't there to cook for him. Hes only partially right. i can make toast and open a beer. The fault lies with me, not her because she was busting ass to get prepared for this diet. Both she and my mother spent a lot of time at Whole Foods and other oat-snorting, hippy grocery stores to try to find iodine free stuff that i could eat, or more accurately, would eat. On the times that i went along, i was not the best help so...If you are out there hun, I'm sorry.

Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.

There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.
Canto V, lines 121-123



Ok, this one is a little bit dark, but for you thyca folks who have yet to go on the diet i think it points in the right direction. Don't sit there miserable remembering the great times and foods that you had when you could eat them, but take the opportunity to maybe find and enjoy new things. I understand that's easier said than done because i have the palette of a 4 year old. I still like and dislike the same crap i did as a child. Burgers, tacos, anything and everything involving cheese. I'm going to have to shift my paradigm for a bit though to get through this without wanting to rise up and slay a coworker just to taste the burger grease dripping from their lifeless fingers. (geeze, sorry. Dante is starting to rub off on me a bit...)

Dante Aligheri

When Scrooge steals your style, you probably have issues.

Ive been keeping a food diary on my phone and ill post it when its a little more useful to other LID dieters, so be on the look out for that, it should be a super exciting read. Again thanks for reading and I'm gonna leave you with one more quote. I think in my head, this is kind of where I'm at. Yes i miss the "good" food but at the same time looking forward to eating foods that are actually better for me.

Quale allodetta che 'n aere si spazia
prima cantando, e poi tace contenta
de l'ultima dolcezza che la sazia,
tal mi sembiò l'imago de la 'mprenta
de l'etterno piacere.

Like the lark that soars in the air,
first singing, then silent, content
with the last sweetness that satiates
it, such seemed to me that image, the
imprint of the Eternal Pleasure.
Canto XX, lines 73-77




P.S. I'm sure i have misinterpreted some of the lines here. Let me be preemptive by saying, I'm sorry if Ive offended someones literary sensibilities. The verses seemed to work in the context i wanted them to work in.

Will it ever stop Yo, I don't know...

...turn off the lights, and I'll glow.

Seriously, I might glow.





Not glowing, but still waxin' chumps like candles.



I'm gonna have to wait 'till the evening of September 1st to find out though. That's the new, tentative, date for my RAI treatment. (I say RAI, because Radioactive Iodine Treatment is too hard to say in battle. In the future when you see RAI, you will know what i mean.) In all honesty though, I'm really not looking forward to it because Ive read a few pretty terrible stories about some people's experiences with it. Some people get really sick and puke alot, some people seem to handle it OK. Some folks really like the diet because they lose weight, but some people like me, hate the diet because you can only eat rabbit pellets and cardboard. Non-iodized cardboard only, of course.Then again, some people see their spouse find companionship in the arms of another, and some people ponder if their cancer contributed to the suicide of a loved one. Not so much because of the treatment but the whole cancer thing.... So again, I'm not really sure what to expect, but I'm trying to prepare for the worst.

(note: those last two actually happened. I didn't make that up. Yay internet. -Sigh-)

(nother note: The treatment makes me so radioactive that i have to spend 3-5 days in isolation from all sentient beings. seriously. I cant be around other living creatures lest i contaminate them. thats kinda scary.)

So what is RAI? Ill tell you, but you should read the next part in your best Charlton Heston voice because I'm going to quote now from the thyroid cancer bible, Thyca.org.





"THOU SHALT READ IN MY VOICE, YOU DAMN DIRTY APES!"







From the Book of Radioactive Iodine
Chapter1, Verses 1-3

...And lo, God spake unto the stricken and unclean. "Thyroid cancer patients with papillary or follicular thyroid cancer often receive a holy dose of radioactive iodine (RAI) about two months after their surgery in an attempt to smite (ablate) any remaining thyroid cells in their bodies." The people heard the news, and it was good. Then God sayeth unto them "In preparation for an RAI scan or RAI treatment, patients are usually asked to go on a wicked and depraved, low-iodine diet (LID). The diet is to prepare for the RAI." The people heard the news, but weren't so impressed anymore. God thus stammered and went on to spake "The stricken follows the diet when preparing for RAI either by temporarily stopping levothyroxine (withdrawal) or by receiving injections of Thyrogen (recombinant TSH) while continuing on levothyroxine." Upon hearing of their loathsome futures, those who understood what these largest of words meant, were tempted to tell Him to go to Hell, but then they remembered they were blessed! They recalled that their cancers weren't likely to slay them. Unlike those unfortunate souls with breast cancer or pancreatic cancer, or any other fast-moving aggressive cancer. He looked into the minds of the diseased and saw the momentary flash of annoyance and then acceptance in their eyes and spake unto them for the last time. "Blessed be thy purpose of a low-iodine diet! Rejoice, as it is to deplete the body of its stores of iodine and thereby, increase the effectiveness of the radioactive iodine scan or treatment. The premise is that when the radioactive iodine is administered, the thyroid cells will 'suck' up the iodine because the body has been so depleted." The words fell upon the ears of the people and they heard it and it was good. Ok, it wasn't really THAT good. It was really kind of a holy pain in the ass, but they would deal with it.



It says that. Really.


Since Ive had a lot of time on my hands recently, I've been reading about iodine and its role in the body. As it turns out, its a pretty important substance. I'm gonna quote now again, but this time its from an anti-cancer website anticancerinfo.co.uk:

"For over 100 years iodine has been known as the element necessary for thyroid production, but its other functions have largely been ignored. Iodine is found in each of the cells and adequate levels are necessary for proper immune system function. Iodine contains potent antibacterial, anti parasitic, antiviral and anticancer properties. It detoxifies the body of heavy metals and toxic halides such as bromine, fluoride and chlorine derivatives. It is suggested that iodine is important in the process of apoptosis, (natural cell death) and in destroying cells that represent a threat to the body, like cancer cells and cells infected with viruses. (Miller 2006)"

Seems like this stuff is pretty important doesn't it? The website goes on to describe how in the past 30 years, people in the U.S. have decreased their iodine intake. I know none of you are going to read the actual site, even though you should, so I'll paint a picture for you....

At some point in the 70's, America threw open the closet doors and saw peasant tops and crappy macramé things, and thrift store plaid and decided it sucked. In a fit of something akin to teenage angst, she freaked out and exchanged her bell bottoms for tighter, shiner disco pants.


If America had Facebook in the 70's this totally would have been her profile pic.



She was super excited to put them on...only they didn't fit. Too many pot brownies and the growing prevalence of fast food in the previous decade had made her ass too fat. The Doctor said that one way to help her out was to get her to eat less salt. America wanted to look awesome in her new shiny pants so she obliged and did indeed eat less salt in the coming years.


Success right? Well, sort of. As a people,the U.S. managed to eat less salt and in doing so, we decreased our iodine intake by 50%. While less salt seems to have helped hearts, iodized salt was and still is our main source of iodine in our diets. We all seem to be getting enough of it to keep most thyroids happy, but according to the docs cited on this website, all of the other organs that need iodine probably aren't getting it. I know I'm getting a little off my original point here, but I thought I should drop a little bit of knowledge on the substance that will make my life miserable soon.

Seriously, if you have any interest in learning about iodine (other thyroid cancer patients, I'm looking at you here.) you should really click that link and read up.


All that being said though, it still seems like RAI is a pretty genius way to treat the cancer. Along the way, some friggin smart doctor(s) figured out that they could Trojan Horse the radiation into the iodine and it would kill off the thyroid cancer cells while leaving other tissues relatively unharmed. My surgeon said that they were trying to find other cancers that would be receptive to this kind of treatment. I hope they find some that are. For all my bitching about it, its still much easier on my body than the treatments for other cancers would be. I really do feel lucky that I don't have to go through repeated radiation treatments or have the kinds of chemo that other cancers require.

So, the next step for me is my diet. I'm not looking forward to it, but this did start off as a diet blog, so i guess its good that i finally have a diet to talk about.

As always I want to thank everyone again for their continued support and love. I am truly spoiled to know people such as all of you. You guys are the ones who are making it easy for me to keep my head up. So thank you again. I am realizing that other Thyroid Cancer folks are reading this, so to them i say thank you for the kind words and i hope that my little blog about my experiences about it help you out too.

I think that's about it for me for now. Thanks for your time.


Word to ya Mutha'.

As it turns out, I don't suck.

Warning: this is kind of a long one

Hey there, its me again. I know that most of you know what has been going on, but for those of you that don't, i ll let you know whats been up with me

In a word, Cancer.

That's whats been up with me.

Those of you who read the last blog i posted know that i had just discovered that i was suffering from some thyroid issues. As it turned out, it was a little more serious than that. Shortly after diagnosing me as being hypothyridic, the doctor decided to do an ultrasound of my thyroid to make sure that nothing was wrong with it. That led to them finding some suspicious areas and that led to a biopsy. I was told not to worry, that only about 4 percent of these things turn out to be cancerous and i remember thinking that 96% was pretty good odds. I should have played the lottery that day...

My cell phone rang at about 8:30am which is well before i am normally awake and i heard the voice of my good, but annoyingly indifferent doctor. He was saying something about biopsy results and papillary something and other big sounding words. I was still fairly bleary and only processing about 20% of what he said. At some point I'm pretty sure he paused, and i said "what" and that's when he dropped the cancer bomb on me. In hindsight i think it might have been a good thing that i was not fully awake when he told me because hearing that you have cancer at the age of 30 is kind of rough. Anyway, after he hung up i took a few moments to sort of consider what he had said to me. I then called my parents and called Becky and everybody was surprised and upset.

Like this. It landed like this.

Of course Becky rushed home from work to be with me and later Alden, my brother in law joined us. I sat there that morning with them and we talked about how all this might go down. Alden knew other folks who had gone through this type of thing before, so he was doing the best he could to let me know it wasn't the end of the world. As our little impromptu meeting ended i decided to call the doctor back and ask him to repeat the stuff he told me since i was now very much awake. I put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear it, and the smallest part of me hoped against hope that i had maybe misheard him earlier that morning. Nope, i still had cancer. I thanked Alden for coming over and crashed back down on the couch again. At this point, i admit that i was upset, but i was sort of ok. When i collected my thoughts a little bit i sat down to do some research on my disease.

PRO TIP: if you think you might have any kind of serious illness, what ever the hell you do, DO NOT look it up on the internet. Nothing good will come of it. In my case there are 4 different kinds of thyroid cancer, and one of them is absolutely horrible and almost always fatal. You can imagine where my mind went with that.

These guys are nothing but fear peddlers.

The next couple of weeks were emotionally up and down. If i thought about it too much i would start to freak out a little bit. All in all though i think i managed to keep a fairly positive outlook on the whole thing. Its not like i had a really aggressive cancer or anything. What i had was extremely treatable and chances were that i would recover and be just fine. Since I'm a lazy person, i was just dreading having to go through all the crap that i knew was going to happen. Like the surgery and the recovery, and the diet and the radioactive iodine treatments, endless blood tests.....blah blah blah.

I was right to dread it though....

Fast forward to July 13th when i actually had my surgery. I really don't remember much of it. I know that we got to the hospital early in the morning. So early in fact, that the damn doors to the surgery center weren't open and we had to walk around the entire hospital to get in. (Honestly, is it too much to think that if the surgery center schedules you to be there at 5am that maybe the doors to the surgery center be open at or before 7am?) Once we got checked in i remember that i really wasn't nervous or anything. Once my name was called we went in, and i changed into my surgical gown.

Side note: Is it only me or does it seem like hospital gowns are designed to be both physically and psychologically uncomfortable?

I got on the bed and stared into the stupidly bright lights and waited. Various nurses and doctors came by and it was pretty much the general pre-surgery dance. Ill tell you, it just never gets old verifying my name and birthday to every single person who opens the curtain. I know its for my safety and all but for the love of all that's holy there has to be a better way...anyway, before i knew it, it was lights out.

Those of you who contacted Becky on that day probably know more about my surgery than i do but what i do know, is that it took waaaay longer than they initially thought it would. The doc thought the surgery would be 4 hours or so, it ended up being a 10-11 hour surgery. The cancer was apparently much worse than anyone thought and it was wrapped around seemingly every structure in my neck. Oh, and at some point i think i had a lung collapse and things got a little scary. (I'm still not too sure what happened there, all i know is i ended up with a chest tube and a hole in my chest that is still healing.) All in all though, I have to thank god that i had such a good surgeon because he managed to save all of the important structures. He managed to avoid all the major nerves in my neck, and anatomically speaking, i still have both my vocal chords even though cancer had wrapped its way around one of them. When he was done, he had taken out my thyroid, a couple of parathyroid glands and a boatload of other cancerous tissues along with it. I guess the surgery went relatively well which is good since waking up from that surgery was a different story....

I honestly don't know how long it took me to wake up after surgery but i woke up in the intensive care unit, and i was not too happy to discover that A) i still had a breathing tube in me and B) i was restrained. I'm still not terribly sure why i was restrained, but i remember fighting it pretty hard. And everything hurt regardless of the fact that i was on a morphine drip. My shoulders hurt, my hips hurt, my neck hurt (imagine that) and the worst part was i couldn't say anything to anyone because of the breathing tube. It was a really long first night as i recall. I couldn't really sleep even though i was exhausted and on boatloads of painkillers. My biggest obstacle to sleep was this freaking alarm that went off when my oxygen level got too low (i think). I guess i wasn't breathing deep enough and that put me at risk for pneumonia or something. On some level i knew that that alarm was for my safety but the fact that it went off every time i started to drift off pissed me off. The nurse wasn't helping either when he told me that i would have to breath deeply for several hours before the breathing tube could be removed. So i breathed. Eventually the tube did come out and the restraints came off and i was able to get some sleep.

Ill be honest, i was pretty blurry there for a long time. My recollection of the time line may be off if you talk to Becky or my mother but this is how it played out to me.

The ICU is a very strange place to recover in. Chances are that you are on a lot of drugs and things that would otherwise be sort of normal are amplified and can be a little surreal and scary. There were a lot of strange sounds and alarms and other noises. I would occasionally hear other patients moan in pain or whatever and I remember thinking at one point that that's what a Medieval dungeon would have sounded like if it had electricity. Some poor guy that i never got to see, had the absolute most annoying monitoring system on him. Every time his body did something unusual or tried to kill him the machine would "play" various notes. That's the only way i can describe it. It would play a different little tune every time his body acted up. I remember telling my dad that it was terribly disrupting when i was trying to sleep and he reminded me that the poor guy was probably close to death. I felt bad, sort of.

When i closed my eyes i could actually sleep, which was good, but every time i moved i hurt. I remember the nurse coming in to roll me on my side to reduce the possibility of bed sores or something (I'm still a little unclear about it actually) and it was just horrible. I couldn't lift or support my head because i had three brand new incisions in my neck, if i put any pressure on my shoulders it was horrible. In fact i had a hard time justifying the pain in my shoulders to myself. Does that make sense? The neck pain and some of the other things i could justify and accept as pain i should be feeling based on the procedure i just had, but the fact that my shoulders felt like they had been torn off my body and then somehow reattached with burning nails was beyond me. The pain and weakness in my left shoulder was so great that i couldn't lift my hand off my body for the first several days. Even now, i still cant lift anything heaver than a gallon of milk with my left arm.

Things did sort of get better though. I got used to the hurty parts on me and I was finally able to hold semi coherent conversations with people who were in there. One thing that i do regret is that apparently i had a cute girl for a nurse and i was too drugged up to remember or appreciate that. Oh well. I was finally released to a private room sometime around noon a couple of days after my surgery. I think.

If you are still reading this i can go ahead and skip through the next part of my recovery. There were lots of naps, and morphine and golf. The British open was going on and frankly it was kind of nice to be able to watch that for hours on end and forget about the fresh holes in my neck. The last real bombshell came on the day that I was released.

I went in for surgery on Tuesday and was released to go home on Saturday but before we (the family and i) left to go, my surgeon came in to check up on me one last time. He told us that everything seemed to be healing up ok, and that i was lucky since i had probably had the cancer for as long as 15 years. I couldn't help but take that as confirmation that i really did have the fat, slow kid of cancer. You know, the pudgy kid in your 1st grade class who always had crumbs from his last meal on his shirt? The kid and who was also kind of irritable and didn't do anything very fast and whined a lot? And his name was probably something unfortunate like Percy, or Duncan or Seymour? Yeah, my cancer is like that. To be honest i am lucky that it is so un-aggressive and slow moving. But 15 years, that's crazy.

This is how i imagine my cancer. Man boobs and all.

So, that's whats been up with me. Ive been home for the last couple of weeks trying to heal up and things are starting to get back to normal. I still don't have a proper voice which is a huge concern for me as I'm sure you all know. Just the other day, the doc told me that either it would come back, or it wont. Thanks doc. While i am able to get up and get around more than i did just a week ago, i still don't have a lot of stamina, and i get tired very quickly if i have to do anything very physical. For instance, i put away the dishes out of the dishwasher and had to have a nap after that. But again, overall things are improving.

So whats gonna happen now? Well that's a good question. The next couple of weeks will be preparation for the radioactive iodine treatment which will hopefully kill off the remaining cancer in my body. So far i have had to come off of the synthetic hormone that i was on and in a couple of weeks i will have to go on an iodine free diet. Ill blog about that sometime soon because its kind of crazy. After i hit a TSH level of 30 (thyroid stimulation hormone) i will have to have a radioactive Iodine treatment which will render me bedridden for 3-5 more days after. The crazy part of that whole thing is that i will be so radioactive that i have to stay 6 feet away from living creatures for 3-5 days. I have to stay away from children and pets for a week. Hopefully that will kill off the remaining cancer that the surgeon didn't get and i can be pronounced cancer free sometime after that. I'm sure that after Becky reads this, she will correct it since she has been my schedule maker/keeper, but that's the general plan for me.

At this point, I need to take this time to thank everyone for being so incredibly supportive to me and my family through this time. Seriously you guys, the support and love has been overwhelming and i don't know if i will ever be able to fully say how much i really appreciate all of you, but i do. I don't use this word very often, but i truly feel blessed to be surrounded by so many folks willing to to go out of their way to help me out. So, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for everything. Someday ill figure out how to repay all the kindness you guys have shown me.

I think I'm gonna wrap it up since this is the 4th time I've written this thing and i want to get it posted before i change my mind and rewrite it all. Again, thanks to all of you for everything and please feel free to email or text or whatever if you have any questions about anything.

I suck.

So, here i am again. Its June (almost a year to the day from when i started this thing) and i have not really made any progress on my mission here. I could list off a bunch of excuses but Thad's exactly what they are. My biggest problem is i have just been really unmotivated to actually lose the weight. I'm trying to get back into the mindset that if i don't lose it now, i probably never will.

So, whats been up with me since my last posting? Well as it turns out i have been fighting a thyroid problem for some time now. I got that diagnosed and i am now on a synthetic hormone that will help to regulate thyroid function for the rest of my life. It kind of sucks that i am only 30 and I'm now on a lifetime medication, but that's the way it goes. The good part of this is that the medicine has really started to help me. For the last couple of years i felt like i really didn't sleep and as a consequence, I woke up completely unrested. I would get up in the morning, but i was so tired that i didn't want to do anything but lay on the couch till i went to work. The new pill has really helped that and I've only been taking it for a little less than a month. So, now that i don't feel like hell when i wake up, maybe i can drag my ass to the gym. I also think i suffer from sleep apnea, but i haven't gone to do the sleep study to find out yet. The other thing that hypothyroidism does is make your weight hard to manage. Now that i am on the medication, I'm told that it will be easier to lose the weight Ive been trying to lose, and hopefully i can keep it off once i lose it.

I did go to the gym today for the first time in a long time, and its kinda sad how far out of shape i am. I did a measly 30 minutes on the elliptical and was pretty worn out by it. I have dreams of getting back to the fairly intense workout that i once did, but i have to ease into it.

I think that's gonna be it for now. I don't want to start making any crazy promises that i wont be able to keep, save one. This is a fairly cathartic blog for me to write, so i will be posting more. Thanks again to everyone for their support.

The hardest part about falling off the wagon is trying to catch back up to the damn thing.

You know, you wouldn't think that its hard to catch a wagon, but if you let it go for a month or more....all you see is dust. Actually, the dust has already cleared, all i see these days are a muddy, rutted trail that i can only imagine goes in the general direction of the fat wagon.



OK, i don't know where this is going, but my point is that it has been a long time and i need to go ahead and get back on track with my diet.



It's been a weird couple of months for me. Assorted health problems, vacations, holidays, and other general annoyances have all contributed to help me get off the aforementioned wagon. I need to find my conviction again.



In October, i attended (semi-reluctantly) Becky's 10yr high school reunion. I know that she wanted me to be there, not just to be with her as she reconnected with old friends, but to also appreciate all the hard work she put into organizing the event. At a conscious level i understand all of that, selfishly though, it was still hard for me to suck it up and attend knowing that i would probably be one of the targets of hushed comments and subtle elbow nudges, as I'm one of the ones who got really fat after high school. In fact, i said hi to a girl i knew pretty well back in the day, and all i got was a blank stare as she pushed passed me to get to the bathroom. In her defense she was pregnant and she has always been a little flaky, but still it kind of sucked. My self consciousness peaked later in the night as i was the only schmuck to throw up at the event. Luckily for me no one really saw me modify the handicap ramp except for my brother in law and a few assorted people on the back porch. That kind of topped the night for me, but as it turned out, i had the flu so it doesn't bother me as much as it might have.

After the flu, i was lucky enough to be stuck with not one, but two kidney stones. Three weeks of narcotic pain killers, and two surgeries later, I'm all clear, but i didn't feel like staying 0n a diet to say the least.

Then the family and i went on a cruise, and good luck sticking to a diet on one of those things. You have people breaking their necks to serve you over priced liquor, and there is food available pretty much everywhere so needless to say, any diet thoughts went overboard.

So here we are at the dawn of a new year and I'm still fat. And older. I'm 30 now and people have told me that once you hit 30, everything changes. Your body starts to slow down, and weight loss becomes much more of a chore. I really need to bear down and get on with it. So, my goal by this time next year is to have lost 50lbs. For those of you who have forgotten, my overall goal is to lose 100lbs from my initial scale reading way back in the spring of '09. So, if you add in the 25 that i lost initially, that will put me at 75% of my goal. Hold me to it people.

I have renewed my gym membership and I'm planning on going back in tomorrow. I'm kind of dreading it, but I'm kind of looking forward to it at the same time. I'm not looking forward to the constant soreness but i sure do enjoy the results when the lbs start to come off.

So there it is. There's my reason for being lax, and not holding up my end of the bargain. Ill be sure to keep you posted. If my time at the gym is anything like the last times i went, i should have some fun stuff to talk about with that as well.

Thanks again for all of your support

How to feed the Beast

So, some folks have been asking me what I have been eating on my diet, so I'm happy to oblige. I should preface this blog by saying it wasn't the best week for me since at some point, some of the food I had at work was thrown out. Apparently pre-school rules apply to the fridge since I have to put my name on my stuff, and label it as something not to be thrown out. Seriously, if its not yours, don't touch it. I'm a fat guy, (albeit, a less fat guy now) and if you mess with my food, you take your life in your hands. I'm just sayin'. I also say it wasn't the best week, not because I didn't eat well, but because i didn't eat enough especially on Thursday and Friday. I need to get to the grocery store and get some food so I don't have to struggle with finding places to eat. Also, Kristen totally called me out and is asking me for a list of what I am eating, this is a decent representation of that. Imagine more shakes and bars, since I try to alternate a shake/bar in between real food.





Monday

breakfast sandwich with ham and cheese

EAS shake vanilla

EAS shake vanilla

chicken and brown rice



Tuesday

breakfast sandwich ham and cheese

EAS bar

nothing

chicken and rice



Wednesday

coffee and toast

turkey sandwich with raw carrots on the side

chicken sandwich with....carrots again

a handfull of baked Lay's bbq chips



Thursday

bowl of cereal

chicken and rice

EAS shake



Friday

coffee and ham and cheese breakfast sandwich

EAS bar

burrito (tortilla, rice, black beans, grilled chicken, lettuce and yes, a little bit of cheese)

chicken sandwich on a whole wheat bagel with celery sticks



Something I feel i should point out here is, all of my bread products are whole wheat or whole grain, the rice I eat is a short grain brown rice and I am drinking a lot of water, or skim milk with these meals. Also, while I have cut back on my soda intake, I still have diet sodas on a pretty regular basis. I know I probably shouldn't but it helps with my caffiene addiction when I don't make coffee.





Update: since i started writing this, I have gone to the grocery store and have replenished my food stores. Again, this is kind of an unusual week for my eating since I was struggling to find stuff in the house, and not cheat either. Also, i have added a multi-vitamin into the mix since, as you can see, I don't eat a lot of vegetables.

Editors note: when I say I went to the grocery store, I really mean Becky went. I hate the grocery store, and I greatly appreciate her doing it.

So, there you have it. I am trying to be good and so far my eating has been responsible for most of my weight loss. Not too long till i hit the 25lb mark. Now, the next step is to get into more intense exercise.



Questions? Concerns? Let me know.